Let’s back up a bit, though. Remember that certificate I won at the Shayne’s Run raffles, from Sam Adams? The one that entitled me to 12 cases of their beer? Well I’d called ahead and schedule a pickup of 3 cases for Tuesday, figuring that we could also do the tour while there. Kill two liver cells birds with one stone, right? Tours began @ 10am, meaning we had to be up early. And by “early”, I mean the ass-crack of 8am or so. (I love playing hookey!) Anywho, we were up and on the road with plenty of time to enjoy the tail end of rush hour traffic. Between the stops and starts of the heavy traffic, I occupied myself with looking at (hugging, staring at, and basically loving) the free beer certificate.
(Cindy was very patient and understanding toward my man-love of the certificate.) Before long, we arrived at the parking lot of the aforementioned brewery. Ta Da!
Inside the building, there’s a bit of a welcome center, where you can mill around and check out some history on the company and admire the numerous awards the beers have won. When it was time for the tour to start, our guide (Tom) called us together and introduced himself. Now Tom looked (and sounded) like he’d just rolled out of bed from a long stretch of tastings on the night before. He was glassy-eyed, seemed a bit out of focus with what was going on around him, and was nursing a large cup of coffee. However, all that aside, Tom was hysterical. He was extremely personable, joked incessantly, and had us all in stitches by the end of the tour.
The tour began with an overview of the safety topics (careful of slippery floors, etc.) and then we were off. The tour itself was rather small, limited of course by the confines of the building we were in – also quite small. They explained that this location is actually the smallest brewery location, but that there are several much larger ones spread around the country. One thing I found interesting is that, since the company boasts that they use Boston water in the brewing process, they have to come up with a method of getting that water to these other brewing locations. However, since it would be quite cost prohibitive to transport the water, they actually do periodic water sampling to determine the chemical content of the water (ph balance, etc.) and then send this info to their breweries, who then use the data to replicate the water used out here. A very interesting workaround to the water aspect.
The next step was to check out the various hops and barleys used for their various beers. We were allowed to take some of each, to smell, or even eat if we liked.
Some of them tasted very familiar to me, but I couldn’t place it, until someone else tossed out; Grape Nuts. That’s it! Grape Nuts! Tom explained that the reason for this is that Grape Nuts actually contain malted barley as one of it’s ingredients. (It was at this point that I made a mental note to pick up some Grape Nuts on my way home.)
After this, it was back to the large brewing chamber, full of the fermenting and filling tanks. Stacked alongside one wall, were these kegs of specialty beers. It turns out they sell bottles of this stuff for $130, make no profit on them at all, and then folks either collect them or sell them - sometimes for thousands per bottle!! What!?!?!? I love beer as much as (or more than) the next guy, but that kind of pricing is just nutty. Let's move on, shall we?
Here’s Tom, standing amongst said tanks.
Not entirely sure what these tanks contained, but they were actively being used, as we saw one of the master brewers taking some samples from one of them.
All this was well and good, but next up was the best part; the tasting! We followed Tom into this fantastic bar-like setup which any proud homeowner would love to have in their basement. The walls were adorned with various pictures of Sam Adams-related topicality, but the forefront of the room contained a mini bar setup, compete with taps and everything!
Tom proceeded to hand us small sampling glasses for us to use. I glanced despairingly at the miniature size of the glass, thinking “This is bad”…but my displeasure was short lived, as Tom began filling two full-sized pitchers for us. Yay for Tom!!
One pitcher went to the far end of the table, and the other pitcher went to me…er…I mean; my end of the table. The first thing I did was to fill my glass and take a big healthy quaff from it, savoring the delightful taste as it eased past my palate and on down to my eagerly awaiting stomach. Mmmm, that is good stuff! A second healthy sampling and my glass was fully depleted of its contents – hey, it’s a small glass, remember?
As I’m gazing at the bottom of the glass I now hold in front of me, Tom declared to the still-patiently-waiting group; “The first step in sampling the beer is to examine the color and shade of the beer.”
Whoops.
Can’t really make out much color or shading from an empty glass…only one thing to do; refill! Hey, this is taking too long…but I have a solution… (Who can blame me for wanting to trade my small glass for a nice full pitcher!?)
Ok, so moving on; after we’d sampled the regular Sam, we then received two more full pitchers, this time of Sam Light. Another fine offering, and again, the pitchers at our end of the table fared much worse than the pitchers at the other end of the table.
During all of this, Tom was tossing out informative bits about beer, the company, etc., as well as prodding us with beer-knowledge questions and tasting pointers. Many times, after offering guidance or suggestions on different tasting techniques (which involved taking a drink), Tom would say “I’ll now do this with you.” and then imbibe again with us. He was enjoying himself immensely, and who wouldn’t? At one point, after doing another taste, one of the people commented “It’s really good”, to which Tom took a large gulp, savored it while gazing longingly into the glass, and then slowly said (while still staring into the depths of the amber fluid) “It..is..good.” Also funny; a couple of times after Tom had taken a sip and savored it, he looked back at us blankly, paused and said “I completely lost my train of thought”. I’m not sure if some (all?) of this was an act, but it was very funny, and added to the whole jocularity of the event.
At one point, I commented that he seemed to like his job, and how good of a mood he was in. He replied; “Yep, it’s a great job, and I’m in a good mood! And (now staring at his glass again), by the end of the day, I’m in a GREAT mood!” (How could you not like this guy, he was a riot!)
Now it was time for our third beer. Wheee, more beer!! Tom announced our options, which included (I think) something like 4 or 5 other choices - the only one I remember was a pumpkin spiced one. The group was silent as folks mulled things over, so I said if it was going to be a vote, then I’d toss my chip in for the pumpkin spice. A few others voiced their agreement, so pumpkin spice it was. (Yay, more beer!!)
Now I like both Sam regular and Sam Light, but I’ll tell ya; this pumpkin spice stuff was excellent! I even had some competition from someone I never dreamed I’d have to worry about liking beer; Cindy! See how she’s smiling innocently here? Yeah, we almost got into a wrestling match when she wouldn’t let go of the pitcher. :-D
Overall; 6 pitchers for 9 people. Normally, I wouldn’t be so happy about those odds, but this group was well behaved and adhered to the tasting process guidelines (small sips, slow and deliberate sampling). Of course, this all meant more beer for the thirsty guy at the end of the table!! Yeah, more beer!!
After about 40 minutes or so, another guide came in and said that while she wasn’t kicking us out, there was another tour group on their way in (we were welcome to finish our beer out in the welcome center). Tom, ever the consummate host, got us laughing again with some more joking, as well as offering us directions to local liquor stores, as well as their phone numbers “In case you want to call them ahead of time and let them know you’re coming.”
And that was the tour. I highly recommend this to anyone that is looking for a great start to a fun day. (The tours run until 5:30, but I imagine the later you go, the more people you’ll have to fight over the beer with.)
Oh yeah, let’s not forget the beer certificate. Not only was the tour a blast and a half, but I also walked away with some awesome parting gifts; three cases of fresh, chilled Sam Adams; one case of Regular, one case of Light, and one case of Winter (seasonal).
Thanks for the laughs, Tom!
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